This customer finds service tough to get

QI’m frustrated with Verizon after a month of being on their 1-800-merry-go-round, where you cannot get to anyone higher than a one-level-up customer service manager, and promises to have someone with more authority call you back go unfulfilled.

I had signed up for a Verizon Triple-Play package over the phone with a customer service representative, after spending about 45 minutes with him comparing the options, including what was available through the Verizon website. Typically, the website has better offers, but this time the person on the phone did, so I went for the two-year contract, only to be surprised with the confirmation email two days later that contained different terms and pricing than what I had agreed to over the phone.

If an employee made a mistake, any store would honor it as good customer relations, educate the employee, and eat the difference. But Verizon apparently has a different attitude toward its customers. Any help you can provide to get Verizon to honor the offer they made and that I actually signed up for would be most sincerely appreciated.

RENEE ROBINS, ACTON

AAlways happy to help. Sometimes, consumers get swallowed in giant customer service operations. That’s particularly frustrating when you just want to find someone who acknowledges having the authority to make a decision.

So, I reached out to Verizon’s corporate office to see if someone there could sort out your situation. A little cage-rattling helped.

“We just solved this with the customer yesterday,” said Verizon spokesman Phil Santoro. “We apologized for the miscommunication and provided a credit on her monthly bill.”

He added: “A good customer-merchant relationship is based on good, two-way communications.”

While it’s good news that this story has a happy ending, it shouldn’t have gotten to this point. Santoro offered no insight into what went wrong. But any consumer who can’t get an answer — at least after a couple of tries — should be given access to someone with the authority to give one.

I’d like to think big companies learn from these situations. Oh, well, a guy can hope. While they didn’t honor the offer you thought you were getting, at least they had the honor to offer enough of a credit to end this standoff peacefully.

Mitch Lipka is a nationally known consumer columnist and runs TheConsumerChronicle.com. He lives in Worcester. You can find him on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/MitchLipka. If you’re having a run-in with a business, think you’re being mistreated as a consumer or have seen something that you think your fellow consumers ought to know about, let him know. You can email Mitch at ConsumerNews@Aol.com.